COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, June 10, 2013

QUESTION NO. 2

QUESTION: Councillor C. Bond

To ask the Manager can the Council hire more staff to ensure that grass cutting in public areas under the remit of the Council takes place at an acceptable frequency?

REPLY:

The Council now has approximately 190 staff working in the Public Realm dealing with the broad range of work that makes up the environmental maintenance programme, including grass cutting. Grass cutting across the county commenced in late March / early April of this year and is taking place on a three week cycle within the resources available and weather permitting. The re-organisation of the Public Realm Environmental Maintenance work programmes is in a transitional phase at the moment that is focussed on the integration of staff, machinery and work programmes that were previously delivered separately. Once this integration has bedded in, managers will then focus on the impact of the integration, efficiencies and improvements to service will be implemented through an overhaul of the works programmes. It is therefore premature to consider the application of additional resources to any of these programmes.

In any case, the Council is not in a position to recruit additional staff because of the staff embargo that is currently in force.